JUNEAU -- A trade association has been created to promote the nascent legal marijuana business in Alaska.

Four of the five board members of the Alaska Marijuana Industry Association held a news conference Thursday in Anchorage to discuss the group's formation; the event was teleconferenced. State records show the group received status as a nonprofit corporation in late April. The goal was to announce shortly after that, but those involved have been busy working at the local level to help set up the industry, board member and vice president Brandon Emmett said in explaining the timing of Thursday's announcement.

Five lawmakers from three states lit up the U.S. Senate in Washington by introducing the first-ever marijuana banking bill.

The bipartisan bill would give state-compliant cannabis businesses access to the banking system by protecting financial institutions against prosecution or asset forfeiture for providing services to those businesses.

A boutique brand aims to give medical marijuana the white-glove, apothecary-chic treatment

Adam Miron handles the package as though it were a newborn. “Look how thick this silk ribbon is,” he says. He points out the embossed gold seal and the acre of tissue paper it holds. He notes the quality of the glass bottles inside, the colourful logos he himself designed, the childproof tops. He is delightfully frank about his desired customer. “Give me a soccer mom who takes a couple of Ambiens,” he says, sunburned, sweaty and grinning in his linen blazer.

About 20% of marijuana business owners in the U.S. are women

Suburban moms selling marijuana is no longer just the plotline of the Showtime series “Weeds”. It’s a growing reality.

Women are increasingly entering the marijuana market as business owners and customers, as the legal obstacles are gradually cleared and retail spaces grow in number.

Women Grow, a Denver-based industry network for women in the cannabis market, estimates that about 20% of marijuana business owners in the U.S. are female. (Women-owned companies comprise about 30% of all U.S. businesses, but as the majority are nonprofit, they account for just 4% of overall business revenue, according to a 2014 report by the National Association of Women Business Owners.)

By Cashinbis

Don't get caught up in analysis paralysis. A 10–20 page outline of your vision is enough

oming up with a business plan is crucial when you’re starting out. The idea of putting down all the thoughts, research, dreams and plans you’ve been holding in your head for months as you prepare to launch a business may seem too overwhelming to undertake as a new entrepreneur, but the plan doesn’t have to be dozens of pages long. Some experts will tell you it only needs to fit on a Post-it note. What matters is that it provides you with a road map of what your business will look like, who your customers will be and how you’ll deal with setbacks.

In 2012, when Washington state voters legalized recreational cannabis, it was witnessed around the world as a landmark voter initiative. What followed was a long 19 months of rule making and lottery drawings to establish a regulated cannabis market. In July, 2014 the first legal marijuana sales began, but not every locality was open to the new law.

Pot shops would have access to banks under new legislation in the Senate.

The Marijuana Business Access to Banking Act, introduced Thursday in the Senate, would allow marijuana companies to store their money in banks.

Dispensaries are currently blocked from the banking system. Even though a number of states have legalized the use of medical and recreational marijuana, it is still illegal under federal law.

This pot paradox has forced many marijuana businesses to keep their cash in their stores because banks are prohibited from doing businesses with them.

More than two dozen agricultural businesses have submitted applications to the Florida Department of Health in hopes of getting a license to grow low-THC marijuana for medicinal use.

Over one-fifth of those applications are for businesses who want to grow the strain in Northeast Florida.

The Department of Health closed the window for applications Wednesday and 28 businesses submitted requests to get the licenses. Only five licenses to cultivate the drug will be issued, one for each of five geographic regions in the state.

Six applications came from Northeast Florida businesses. Those Northeast Florida agricultural businesses include:

■ Loop’s Nursery & Greenhouses in Jacksonville.

Lloyd’s of London has stopped insuring marijuana industry firms of any kind due to conflicts between federal and state laws over their legality.

In a May 29 memo addressed “Dear Colleague,” obtained by Insurance Journal, Lloyd’s Director of Performance Management Tom Bolt wrote to U.S. Syndicates that the company has considered various requests with respect to insuring marijuana or marijuana related businesses, either medicinal or recreational in the United States, and has determined that it no longer will support insuring marijuana operations of any kind until the drug is formally recognized by the U.S. government as legal.